How temperature affects battery measurements

RE: How temperature affects battery measurements

dubbie — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 11:20:00 GMT

Interesting data. I can remember when car batteries were not quite as good as they are now and on winter mornings there was always an element of worry about whether the car would start. If I could get my car to start on the first attempt then I was going to be OK, but if not, then sometimes I had to wait for the battery to warm up - which it does from having the initial starting current taken - and/or the chemistry to get a bit more lively. A couple of minutes was usually enough.

Dubbie

RE: How temperature affects battery measurements

three-phase — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 21:15:35 GMT

Some interesting data produced. I have never thought about the affects of the test frequency when using battery impedance testers.

Temperature is certainly something that we would record when taking measurements on the battery cells. I have never adjusted impedance readings, but for full discharge tests, we would compensate for the battery performance when the test is carried out at a different temperature, than that specified by the manufacturer.

The IEEE 1188 standard provides a table for carrying out the compensation for a battery discharge test applied to either the discharge current or the final voltage readings.

RE: How temperature affects battery measurements

DAB — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 18:41:47 GMT

Nice post.

Are you going to look at Lithium or Alkaline batteries as well?

DAB

RE: How temperature affects battery measurements

colporteur — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 02:40:32 GMT

Great post KS! Enjoyed it other than having to try and find a translation for acronyms. My technical writing text book says If you use them, define them first.

Your fridge experiment piqued my interest. I live in a clime that temperatures vary between extremes of -40 Celsius in the winter to +40 Celsius in the summer. Automotive battery manufactures advertise that there batteries work in my extreme cold. You experiment demonstrates a battery can have potential performance issues as it gets cold. Any idea how this is mitigated in a battery that can crack over a car engine at -40?

RE: How temperature affects battery measurements

jw0752 — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 21:51:35 GMT

Hi Kai,

A very interesting experiment. I enjoyed your write up and your use of the refrigerator for the experiment. I hope you use your access to interesting equipment to give us some more cool blogs.

John